Hawkins ‘pushed too hard’ in crash that ended his Combe meeting early

Tom Hawkins has said his Castle Combe FF1600 Championship crash which forced him to miss the second race at the Carnival meeting was caused by him ‘pushing too hard’.

Hawkins started the first race in sixth place but crashed on the start-finish line at the start of lap two.

It meant his Ray had damage to its wishbones. While his Springbridge Direct team worked hard to fix them a lack of spare parts kept Hawkins out of race two of the event sponsored by Melksham Motor Spares.

“I was just trying to keep up with the guys in front of me and basically pushed too hard into Camp,” Hawkins said about the crash. “I didn’t quite have the grip they had and the speed they were taking; I just ran out of road.

“I got on the grass and thought ‘I’ve got this’, I thought I saved it. And then the wall started coming towards [me] and I ended up hitting the wall.”

The crash caused a red flag as Hawkins’ Ray ended up in the middle of the track amid debris.

Hawkins had been doubtful in advance of the second race that his team would be able to fix the car in time for race two due to the squad not having the required spare parts.

“The car [damage] is not terrible but I don’t know if we’ve got all the parts we need to fix it, that’s the only problem,” he said at the time. “We’re trying hard to fix it.”